


Codeword Blue

by clockworksilence



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Booker | Sebastien le Livre Whump, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Gen, Is this even funny?, M/M, OT3, Soft Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, This is DUMB, because it's honestly just a HOT mess, booker/joe/nicky - Freeform, i hope it is..., i just had an idea and ran with it, i mean really dumb, nile is done with these horny old men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 06:20:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30017433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworksilence/pseuds/clockworksilence
Summary: Andy could only eat berries and grapes in even numbers. Quynh slept lying on her right side with a lamp left on. Joe liked to jog first thing in the morning, just as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. Nicky could disassemble then put his rifle back together with his eyes closed. Booker listened to Clair De Lune on days when he felt overwhelmed.Nile thought she noticed everything, including all the strange, intimate details of her new family.As pathologically observant as she was, she very nearly missed a new, more profound development with the people she called home.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache/Booker | Sebastien/Nile Freeman/Joe | Yusuf/Nicky | Nicolo/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, booker/joe/nicky
Comments: 8
Kudos: 76





	Codeword Blue

_Andy could only eat berries and grapes in even numbers. Quynh slept lying on her right side with a lamp left on. Joe liked to jog first thing in the morning, just as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. Nicky could disassemble then put his rifle back together with his eyes closed. Booker listened to Clair De Lune o_ _n day_ _s_ _when he felt overwhelmed_ _._

_Nile thought she noticed everything, including all the strange, intimate details of her new family._

_As pathologically observant as she thought she was, she very nearly missed a new, more profound development with the people she called home._

Just as Nile was beginning to feel comfortable around Joe, Nicky and Andy, finding her feet and where she belonged, the return of Booker and Quynh had set everyone back to the start.

It was fine, Nile had reasoned. They belonged together. All of them. Destiny, as Nicky often said. Picking up the pieces of every broken promise and vowing to put it together again, though a mission of emotional exhaustion, was infinitely worth it. Joining the fragments of a fractured group together in a beautiful mosaic of broken pieces, she had time to notice each member’s unique quirks and how they combined to create patchwork of functionality.

Stitching Joe and Nicky back with Booker, however, had proved to be a difficult task.

Nile was nervous it wouldn’t happen at first. While Nicky extended the olive branch, Joe seemed all too happy to set it alight and sweep away its ashes. Andy and Nile had initially tried to mediate with mixed results and getting caught in the crossfire proved counter-productive. After days of reasoned arguments and discussions without interference, it transpired that the healing seemed to progress much quicker if the boys were left to duke it out amongst themselves. The fissures between them were theirs and theirs alone and they were the only three who could resolve it.

It took weeks for the ice to thaw. Frosty became cool. Cool became friendly. Friendly became just like old times.

But there was an overwhelming sense that things were even warmer than that.

It was barely noticeable at first. Nile assumed that the occasionally loaded looks shared between the three of them where just signs that all was forgiven; making up for time and love lost after what had happened with Merrick. Long, knowing glances seemed to be par for the course with the immortals and Nile often wondered whether there was some kind of wordless, psychic bond between them all that would perhaps avail itself to her in the years to come.

But then, in a quiet moment somewhere in Norway, she noticed the hand Nicky laid on the small of Booker’s back as they passed each other in the kitchen. Weeks later in Germany, the celebratory hug between Booker and Joe when A. S Roma were soundly beaten by Shakhtar Donetsk that lingered a little too long.

“What was that?” Nile had asked, turning wide eyed and opened mouthed to Andy, sat beside her at the kitchen table, drinking the tea Quynh had made them both.

“About 200 years in the making,” Andy replied, cryptic as ever, grinning over the rim of her mug, her face the picture of joy as she observed Booker and Joe, smiling as the two men seemed to remember they weren’t alone and quickly found their seats again.

If there was any dance that had pre-dated the current situation, Andy had seen it all and wasn’t surprised. Quynh, knowing Joe and Nicky as she did, had her theories as to why their ire towards Booker was as visceral and venomous as it was.

It seemed there was something much more potent than anger between the three of them; that’s what had taken them so long to try and reconcile.

Whatever seemed to be going on between the three men – and Nile was becoming increasingly convinced of that fact – it was kept behind closed doors, not shoved in anyone’s face. Privacy was almost impossible given the kind of life they all lead but somehow they were managing it.

That was until an awkward 2am meeting with Joe outside the bathroom, her vying to exit as he made entrance. Through half shut eyes bleary with sleep, she could have sworn she’d caught him leave what she thought was Booker’s room, hair dishevelled, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs that looked a little too big to be his own.

 _Oh, shit_ , Nile thought, shaking her head of the visual. _All three of them are banging._

But that wasn’t the real eye-opener. That came a few days later.

\---

It was Joe who had started it, months beforehand. It wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t even meant to have been a big thing.

He just wanted to make Booker laugh.

Part of the team’s agreement on having Booker return was contingent on the promise that he communicate better: if he felt depressed or was worried he was about to do something self-destructive, he had to let someone know. Anyone.

 _Codeword Blue_. Even if Booker didn’t immediately advocate for himself, the second anyone noticed he wasn’t quite with them, Codeword Blue was the signal to interrupt, redirect and distract. Talk. Hug. Kiss. Soothe.

The system was working well. Happier than he could remember feeling in decades, back with the people he loved and, it turned out, was _in_ love with, the bad days were getting further and further apart. But there _were_ still bad days, black clouds on summer skies, triggered by anything but usually something that would otherwise be considered innocuous. Today, it was the way the light of the April morning streamed like shards through the blinds of the current digs in Soho, reflecting off the dust that hung lazily in the air and glittered like stardust that sent him back to Marseilles, 1810, sons in his arms, guards at the door and tears in his eyes, saying goodbye, convinced it was the last time he would see them.

If only it had been.

He wanted to pick up the hip flask but instead he picked up the phone.

No words. Just a series of blue squares plotted into a frantic text and an inexplicable need to have Joe answer him.

He’d only been gone with Nicky for about half an hour but the line in the market was moving so slowly, they might’ve been out for an age of the earth. They’d left Booker sleeping on the couch, certain the quick errands could be done before he awoke. He was sleeping much better these days, now that Quynh was safe with them and no longer plaguing his nightmares and he had about 200 years of it to catch up on.

When Joe saw the message, his heart sank and a mild panic washed over him: the girls were out, too. He was at the house alone. Not thinking, with Nicky stood mere feet from him, he took his phone, squared it at his lover’s rear, quickly snapped a photo and hit “send”.

It was dumb. He knew it was dumb. But casually objectifying Nicky, the longest love of his life, gave him joy. Maybe that would extend to his newest love, too. Worst case scenario, it would confuse Booker out of his funk. Best case scenario, they’d laugh about it later.

Barely a minute passed and a reply buzzed: three laughing face emojis and a “thank you”.

Joe grinned and pocketed his phone, catching Nicky’s eye as they finally settled up, but said nothing as they grabbed their bags of groceries and headed back to the house.

Later that night, away from the prying eyes of everyone else, Nicky reaped the benefits of his unwitting modelling. Backed against bedroom door the Italian, kisses so insistent it left him breathless, Booker’s hands drifted to Nicky’s backside. He playfully made a grab at the rounds of his rear, pulling his hips to his, Nicky moaning into his mouth as the grip tightened. Booker rarely engaged in the kind of roughness he enjoyed.

“That really is a great ass,” Booker had murmured, grinding against him.  
  
Bewildered by the comment but too turned on to care, Nicky had simply dragged his lips down Booker’s neck before tugging him to the bed and giving him another sleepless night to add to the tally.

\---

Two days later, Booker returned the favour. Not because Joe was upset or having a bad day himself; it just seemed like fun.

Nicky, comfortable on the couch with Booker’s head on his shoulder, didn’t want to have to get up to retrieve his book from the table near them. It was, of course, much easier to execute an ungainly lean and reach for it instead.

For all his intelligence, Nicky’s moments of stupidity were adorable.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Booker laughed.

“I didn’t want to get up,” Nicky strained.

“Yeah, that looks much easier...”

Watching his body contort, his butt lifting slightly from the cushions, Booker saw an opportunity and seized it. Quietly, slowly, the struggle nearly complete, the younger immortal swiped his phone from the floor and as surreptitiously as he could, took a snapshot before Nicky returned to a more comfortable position, book in hand.

 _What do you think?_ Booker captioned the image before sending it on its way to their other part, currently upstairs showering.

A minute and an audible laugh from the bathroom upstairs later, he received a reply: _6/10. Cute_ _s_ _ubject. Awful compo_ _s_ _ition._

A competition was born.

There was no official point system, no leader-board and absolutely no way of telling who won or lost, other than the leap-frogging ranking they held over each other with each photo.

Nicky got his own back on Joe first, taking full advantage of a Herculean reach to the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet to put away some glasses. Booker was second on the hit-list. Nicky caught him leaning into the back seat of the car to rescue a jacket, the denim of his jeans doing him all sorts of favours.

None of them were safe.

Booker had claimed a temporary victory with a picture of Joe, bent over to re-tie an unfurled bootlace as they were walking through Munich back to the safehouse, a tantalising peak of peachy buttocks just visible above the waist of his jeans – credit given, of course, for artistic interpretation and risk of photo – but Joe had quickly swiped the top spot away from him. Catching Nicky on his way out of the shower, skin still dewy with water the towel couldn’t quite catch and distracted by a search for clothes, Joe considered it his pièce de résistance.

 _Unclothed Beauty, 2022._ Joe tapped on the keypad. _Review?_  
 _  
11/10,_ came the swift response. _He belong_ _s_ _in the Louvre._

He held podium position for a month.

Nicky’s addition would have been gold-winning. After weeks of trying and failing, he finally got it captured: Booker’s ass as he clambered out of bed one Friday morning. Nicky had lazily kissed down his back as Booker sat up, coming to, ending the languid trail with a deep bite on his left cheek that was met with a tortured groan. Catching the faint bruise and bite mark on his left buttock just as the healing was near completion, he gleefully took a photo.

 _Guess where I was last night_ , he typed, grinning broadly before tapping the paper plane icon.

Strangely, rather than hearing the buzz of Joe’s phone through the adjoining wall, his own phone vibrated. As did Booker’s.

A howl of laughter from Andy and Quynh and a scream of horror from Nile was the final nail in Nicky’s coffin. A thousand curse-words in Italian, Arabic, French and English rushed through his panicked mind.

He’d sent it to the wrong message thread. Family, not Joe.

“Are you _fucking_ kidding me?” Nile yelled from across the house.

There were no apologies that could make it right. Not enough therapy in the world for Nile to un-see that picture or unlearn what the three men got up to when the women weren’t around.

And absolutely no promises that they wouldn’t do it again.


End file.
